1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to software design tools and, more particularly, to a user interface that aids a developer of an interactive voice response (IVR) system in creating a call steering application to associate user intent with the user's responses to open-ended questions.
2. Description of the Background Art
In many interactive voice response (IVR) systems, a user inputs one of a predefined set of a responses in order to be routed to a destination (e.g., “for customer service, press or say 1;” for technical support, press or say 2;” etc.). A call steering application within an IVR system is different in that it routes a caller to his or her intended destination based on receiving responses to open-ended questions (e.g., “What is the purpose of your call?”). Call steering applications are difficult to implement because there are many possible responses to an open-ended question. Even among users that have the same objective or intent, there can be many different responses to a question. For example, an IVR system for a banking institution may ask its customers what they would like assistance with. A customer could respond with “New account,” “Checking account,” or “Open account” with the intention of being transferred to the same destination. A developer of a call steering application must associate each of the various likely responses with a semantic meaning. Given the large number of possible responses, this is usually a complex and time-consuming process requiring the expertise of specialist and various scripts.
Therefore, there is a need for a call steering application development tool that enables businesses to more easily and efficiently develop and create a call steering application. Specifically, there is a need for a user interface that enables a user to easily tag response data with a semantic meaning so that statistical models can be trained to better understand the responses to the open ended questions.